Zubin Kanga – Dark Twin: Music For Piano And Multimedia

Piano virtuoso Zubin Kanga explores the dark side in an intriguing concert programme Dark Twin – music of mystery and multiplicity for piano and multimedia.

Classically trained Kanga is renowned for his performances of contemporary music, pushing the boundaries of innovative music and expanding the possibilities of the piano with the assistance of multimedia platforms. Electronics, computer interaction and film combine in Dark Twin to explore the potential for multiple personalities, malevolent doppelgängers and menacing landscapes around the solo pianist.

Having first conceived this project three years ago, Kanga commissioned three Australian composers – Julian Day, Daniel Blinkhorn and Cat Hope – each with extensive experience in writing with electronics, to create new works with different styles and approaches: from lo-fi tools such as portable radios, to complex video and surround sound interacting with the pianist. His hands-on approach to collaboration saw him work with each composer through workshops in Australia and London. Being performed alongside these Australian works are pieces by major international composers, each a specialist in innovation and combining music and technology.

In this concert, Kanga duets with an artificial intelligent system, plays through an avatar, creates massive walls of warped piano sounds and grooves within an invisible piano ensemble, the works exploding any preconceptions of what is possible in a ‘solo’ piano recital.

London-based Australian pianist, Zubin Kanga has collaborated with many of the world’s leading composers and performed at major festivals throughout the UK, Europe, USA and Australia including the BBC Proms, Borealis Festival (Norway) and Mars aux Musées (France). A member of Ensemble Offspring, one of Australia’s leading new music ensembles, he has also performed as a soloist with the London Sinfonietta and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He has a Master’s degree and a PhD from the Royal Academy of Music, London, and is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Nice and IRCAM in Paris.